


The fork in his path

by Amerna



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Also: some people die, Asgardian science magic that gets no further explanation, Everything to avoid civil war okay?, F/M, darcystevemonth, it’s nobody major though and it’s off screen and not graphic, opinion changing dream, trope week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4972642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amerna/pseuds/Amerna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a weird occurrence transports Steve into an alternative universe where he didn't break up with Darcy Lewis four years ago, it leaves him reeling. Here he has everything: he is happy, has a family and his friends by his side. But then: Maybe this alternative universe wasn't made to last. After all, you had to wake up from of the perfect dream and then what? Built your life out of the shreds of something you could and would never have?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The fork in his path

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't meant to be my story for the trope week at all. Seriously, I had almost finished a nice little fluff piece surrounding the "Love before first sight"/"In love with my alter ego" trope. And then on my way to work on Thursday morning my moron brain decided to play tricks on me and made me write this thing.
> 
> If you are wondering what me think that way: I don't know, but then, I was listening to Coldplay's album "A rush of blood to the head", more specifically [Amsterdam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vblNj75hUpM) at that point.
> 
> I will finish that fluff piece and post it next week.

### The fork in his path

“This looks pretty abandoned from my point of view,” Sam said into coms. “I mean, I could be wrong, since I’m flying at 100 feet above ground, but I don’t think anybody is there.”

“Maybe they wanted to lure us here?” Steve heard Natasha say. “We should proceed with caution. It could be rigged with explosives.”

“Copy that,” Steve said. “I’ll be careful.”

It was a standard mission. Steve had Sam and Natasha by his side and was just staking out a Hydra facility south of Jakarta. So far everything was quiet but didn’t mean that nothing was going on.

Steve advanced slowly to the abandoned factory. He was 50 feet away from the entrance, when suddenly there was a blinding white light, followed by a loud buzzing noise. He could hear someone yell “Captain!” desperately.

And then: Nothing.

* * *

Steve woke up in a soft bed, feeling alert and irritable. This wasn’t his room, he realised immediately, this wasn’t his bed and this was definitely a place he had never been before.

And he wasn’t alone, he realised. He looked at the woman sleeping at the other side of the bed, her dark hair fanned out on the pillow. He couldn’t see her face but she looked achingly familiar. It had been years since he had woken up to that view. Years since he’d ruined the one good thing in his life.

There was a chirping sound on his left and he turned his head to look at what he assumed was a high-tech baby monitor that was stationed on his bedside table.

“It’s your turn,” Darcy Lewis mumbled sleepily, but Steve didn’t move, waiting to wake up from this very realistic looking dream. “Steve,” Darcy nudged him with her elbow, “it’s your turn to get Jack-Jack.”

His name is Jacob James Rogers, was Steve’s first thought, which he quelled down immediately. There was no reason to add extra details to whatever his subconsciousness had put on display here. He would wake up any minute now, but that didn’t happen. Finally Steve decided that apparently his dream wanted him to play along, so he got out of the bed and slowly moved to the nursery next door to stand next to the crib that was placed there.

A baby, circa six months old, was looking up at him, gurgling happily. Again his mind was playing tricks on him, because suddenly Steve knew with the same certainty that had provided the boy’s full name that he was five months old, was born on February 8th, a snowy day, after seven hours of labour.

“Hey buddy,” Steve said softly, his own voice sounding strangely foreign to him. He touched the boy’s head, where the first fuzz of hair had started growing and felt incredibly soft beneath his fingers, “you are awake early today.”

The baby made no sound, but kicked his feet happily and stared up at him. Steve bent down to get Jack-Jack out of the crib and then his gaze fell into his left hand. And sure enough, there was a wedding band on his left finger. So he was dreaming about a life he would never have, he realised. Married to Darcy Lewis, having a family with her. This was his first good dream in a long time, Steve decided and hoped that it would last a little longer.

He took Jack-Jack out of the crib and went downstairs to the kitchen to prepare his bottle for him. When he went by past their bedroom he could hear the rustling of their bedsheets and Darcy snoring slightly.

He prepared the bottle with practiced ease, instinctively knowing where everything was in the kitchen he’d never been in. He fed Jack-Jack and then burped him and placed him into the cradle that was standing on the kitchen counter.

He looked around in this family home his mind had conjured. For a dream this had amazing detail, it felt comfortable and lived-in. The open kitchen led into their living room area, which was filled with toys on the floor and books stacked on different surfaces. He recognised a few of his own drawings on the living room walls. He took a step towards the fireplace to look at the pictures that were displayed there, finally finding his wedding photo. They had had Ella first and then gotten married afterwards, he realised and then remembered. His breath hitched when he saw the pictures of Bucky standing up with him as his best man on his wedding day.

Bucky, who back in Steve’s reality was still, or rather once again, on the run and just checked in with Steve occasionally to coldly tell him that, yes, he was still alive and to “Back off, Captain!” Finding Bucky… had been uneven. It should’ve been. Steve’s hopes had been too high and obviously Bucky couldn’t fulfil them, not by a long shot. Two broken people couldn’t heal each other. And then Tony had gotten involved, too, and Bucky had run and Steve had once again started searching for him.

Steve heard the tell-tale croak on the stairwell and a minute later Darcy was downstairs, too, carrying their 3-year-old, Ella Jane, on her hip. Ella’s face lit up the moment she saw her father.

“Daddy!” she shouted in delight and reached out with her hands.

In two long strides Steve was at Darcy’s side and taking Ella from her. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her head into his neck. “I missed you, too, pumpkin,” Steve said softly. He cuddled with his oldest for a bit and then placed her in the high chair to help preparing breakfast with Darcy.

It happened when he was done with breakfast and getting up from his chair. Darcy was getting Ella out of her high chair to let her play on the living room floor for a bit. That was when he noticed the ring on Darcy’s finger, her engagement ring, and for a moment he thought that this shock was probably enough to wake him up. It couldn’t be.

He took a sharp breath and stumbled a step backwards and into the fridge.

Steve had been with Darcy Lewis for eighteen beautiful months. He had thought he would probably be with her forever. He’d met her a few months after the Battle of New York, when Jane Foster had moved to the tower to work for Stark Industries. He had been instantly smitten and it hadn’t taken long for him to ask her out. He told her he loved her for the first time in the Egyptian art exhibition at the Met. Shortly afterwards he had been transferred to the SHIELD DC office, but they had even managed to make the long distance relationship work.

They had all but planned their future together. Darcy had been looking for open positions in DC to move down to be with him. One day Steve had walked passed a jewellery store and a ring on display had caught his attention. It was a beautiful platinum ring with a blue diamond in an emerald cut that would fit her perfectly. He had bought it instantly and had made plans to ask her the next weekend she would come down to Washington.

Then came the mission on the Lemurian Star, the Hydra revelation, the Winter Soldier’s/Bucky’s unmasking and the battle at the Triskelion. They hadn’t broken up immediately afterwards, but it had changed dynamics.

Darcy had been supportive at first, unnervingly so. She had been understanding when he had told her that he would have to search for Bucky first and find him before he could move on. They had gotten into their first serious fight when Steve had returned from his second two months’ mission, empty-handed.

And then Peggy had died and Steve had been devastated. It had all come to a boiling point for him then and in the aftermath he had become distant and aggressive, unapproachable. Darcy had tried sticking with him, but Steve had ruined it all. He had suggested that they should take a break and then he’d botched it.

They had never gotten back together. He had never used the ring. Until this day he had kept the ring. It was a promise, a reminder of a life that he no longer could have. In his mind it had always been Darcy’s ring.

That ring now sat on Darcy’s finger.

He pinched himself, hard, but he still wouldn’t wake up. What was this thing?

Darcy must’ve noticed a shift in his behaviour, too. She turned around and looked at him questioningly. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You are awfully quiet this morning. Did something not go according to plan on yesterday’s mission?”

“I’m just exhausted,” Steve lied.

“You? Exhausted? Has your age finally caught up with you?” she teased.

“Maybe.”

Darcy’s eyebrows shot into her hairline. “Okay, your standard answer to that is that you have me to keep you young. Are you sure you are okay?”

Steve passed one hand over his eyes and tried to make sense of it all. “Yeah, just tired.”

He was saved from further questioning when the front door opened and his childhood friend appeared.

Steve had his reaction mostly in check, mostly, but then he couldn’t help but stare. Bucky… Bucky looked good. For a moment Steve felt as if his breath was knocked out of him. There was no shadow behind his eyes, no haunting look, he wore a short-sleeved shirt with his metal arm on full display instead of hiding it under long-sleeved clothes with gloves to boot. He was clean-shaven and last year he had – after wearing his hair long for years – spontaneously gone back to his “1940s Bucky hair” as he had called it. Steve couldn’t see it, because Bucky’s left shoulder was covered by his shirt, but he knew with the same certainty that he knew his children’s names and birthdays and had memories of his own wedding day, that the red star was no longer there and it was instead emblazoned with a miniature of his shield.

“Uncle Buck, Uncle Buck!” Ella came rushing towards him as fast as her tiny feet could carry her and Bucky picked her up easily and swung her around, making her giggle in delight.

Uncle Buck lived three houses down from them, Steve’s mind provided to him, and was a visitor almost every single day, he was basically part of their family. No, not basically, he _was_ family, it was as easy as that.

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” Bucky said softly and kissed Ella’s nose. Steve tried to remember when was the last time back in his reality where he’d heard Bucky’s voice without any animosity in it. It must have been before the fall in the Alps, back in the 40s.

Darcy’s phone rang and she picked it up and had a short, clipped conversation with the person on the other end.

“Pepper has some kind of work emergency,” Darcy announced, after she had hung up. So Darcy was still working with Pepper in his dream, too. “Do you guys mind taking Ella and Jack-Jack into day care?”

“Nah, we’re good,” Bucky said distractedly, while he was blowing raspberries into Ella’s stomach.

Darcy looked at Steve, who just gave her a nod and then started cleaning up the kitchen. Darcy went upstairs to get ready and was back down again in her business suit half an hour later. By that point, Steve had cleaned up and Bucky was sitting on the living room floor, entertaining Ella with made up stories that featured most of her Avengers dolls. Both Steve and Ella were listening to the stories rapturously.

Around him Darcy gathered her stuff, her purse, her keys, her laptop bag. The last thing she did before she left the house was getting onto her tiptoes and kissing him, short and soft, swift and sweet, like they were used to it.

They had been used to it at some point in his past, Steve thought bitterly.

Then Darcy was gone out of the door.

“Well, we better get going, too,” Bucky announced a few minutes later. By that point Steve had been debating what to do. Was he supposed to move along with the day? Play along with everything that was thrown at him? Play along until he would inevitably wake up? In the back of his mind, he knew that he was supposed to attend a post-mission briefing at the tower and had training sessions planned, too.

It was such a weird dream. Everything was familiar yet strange. Steve instinctively knew where everything was, his razor, the car keys, Ella’s favourite toy. Everything. He had memories dating back years, memories of things that definitely hadn’t happened. He wanted to wake up but at the same time he didn’t. This dream was perfect, there was nothing like this waiting for him back in reality.

“I’ll help getting the two little monsters ready,” Bucky continued and proceeded to carry Ella back upstairs and Steve followed him with Jack-Jack in tow.

He got his children ready by sheer force of habit (habits he shouldn’t have) while his mind still tried to figure out what was happening to him. Steve had experienced a lot of strange things in his life – waking up 70 years in the future being one of them – but this was definitely also very high up on the strangeness scale.

He knew he wasn’t good at hiding his confusion, too, because Bucky had begun to frown at him and look at him sideways, his eyes narrowing at some points. So Bucky had definitely noticed that something was off with Steve. Steve wished it was like this back in his world, too.

Once they had the children strapped into the car seats and ready to go, Bucky finally opened his mouth. “You okay?” he just asked.

What was Steve supposed to answer to that? No, he was most definitely not okay. His wasn’t real and at the same time the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. He couldn’t answer honestly. They’d probably think he was crazy, a lunatic and maybe it would end the dream, too.

“Just a headache,” Steve simply said, scratching the back of his neck. He still was a terrible liar. “Do you mind driving?”

“You should get that checked. You never have headaches,” Bucky pointed out.

“Darcy teased me about it already. Maybe it’s my age finally showing.”

“So you didn’t fight with Darcy?” Bucky eyed him shrewdly.

“No!”

“Okay, just asking. You behaved differently with her this morning. Also, I’d totally kick your ass if you did.”

“I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“I thought the mission in El Salvador wasn’t that exhausting. Just your standard pop in, get rid of bad guys, pop out.”

“It was, it’s just… I don’t know.”

“Midlife crisis?” Bucky joked.

“Haha,” Steve said humourlessly.

“Well, you are turning 100 years old in a few days, so…”

Steve mulled over this in the car, which Bucky drove into Manhattan, towards the tower, Steve realised. He had already turned 100 in his lifetime, a few weeks ago. There had been no celebration, he hadn’t even been in the States for Independence Day, he’d been by himself in Algiers on a reconnaissance mission. He had only realised later that he had turned 100 when he had looked up the dates for his post mission report. Nobody had mentioned a word about this upon his return.

It was weird to dream about this now, was it? That his mind had decided to show him an imagining of what could’ve happened. This wasn’t some kind of prophetic daydream; this was more like his personal version of the Christmas Carol. What was he supposed to do with this after he would wake up? He couldn’t change the past anymore. This was about the choices he had made years ago and couldn’t take back now.

They made it to the tower and brought both Ella and Jack-Jack to the on-site day care facilities that Stark Industries provided. Afterwards Bucky and Steve made their way up to the floors in the tower that were dedicated to Avengers business.

Natasha was waiting for them by the elevators. She winked at Steve – something she hadn’t done in years back in reality. They were still friends, but then their relationship had cooled a lot. Natasha was more of his second in command by now. The voice of reason, when Steve wanted to stubbornly push ahead. Steve had the feeling that Natasha stuck with him out of pity and because she had nowhere else to go.

“James,” Natasha said mysteriously. She was one of the few people who refused to call him Bucky, his dream memories told him. A few months after he had brought Bucky back in Natasha had opened up about their joint past in the Red Room. They were close now, Red Room siblings, they called it. They had never rekindled their romance, though. “I need to borrow you for a bit. Steve: I think Maria is already waiting for you in the south end meeting room.”

She grabbed Bucky by his hand and dragged him into the opposite direction Steve was supposed to head, so Steve made his way to the south end meeting room alone. It was weird, walking through these halls again. He hadn’t been in the tower for ages, not after they had opened the Avengers facility in upstate New York. But the location wasn’t the only difference, there was a different feeling to all of it and he realised it after he’d passed the second person who greeted him as “Steve.”

Nobody called him “Commander” around here or even “Captain”. He was Steve for everybody. Back wherever he was, he had their respect. Here he had their affection, too. Nobody scurried out of his way quickly and didn’t dare to meet his eyes when Steve strode through the hallways. He was among equals here.

“Yo! Steve!” Tony yelled after him, making Steve stop dead in his tracks. He hadn’t been talking to Tony in months now. Tony, who with an army of lawyers at his beck and call and a Congressional Committee behind him, was urging for more oversight. Tony, who had almost gone out of his way to kill Bucky after Steve had brought him in, which had ultimately driven them further apart and Bucky away once more.

“How’s my favourite future engineer doing?” Tony asked when he had caught up with Steve.

Steve looked at him blandly.

“Your daughter?” Tony prompted. “I miss that little bundle of joy. Bruce, too.”

So Bruce had never left either. Back in his world Dr Banner had just disappeared from the tower one day and never returned. He had left a message stating that the tension building was too much for him and that he needed a way out, that he wasn’t meant for the whole makeshift family anyway and it was just a matter of time until the other guy would make a very unwelcome appearance and destroy everything.

“We haven’t seen her in the labs in two weeks or so,” Tony continued babbling, “because both you and your wife have been too busy to visit. Seriously, you need to bring her along. You wouldn’t _believe_ what Bruce and I managed to made kiddy proof. Let’s just put it that way: There will be no more welding accidents. With or without children.”

At that moment Bruce appeared behind him and Steve had to keep himself from doing a double take. Bruce looked good, happy, content, well-fed, like he had found peace. Back in his day, when he had last seen Bruce, before his disappearance, he had been haggard and restless, with an air of weariness that even sleep couldn’t heal.

“Also, Jack-Jack, it’s never too early to get into the profession, right? I mean we don’t want him to become one of these artsy types, like his _father_ ,” Tony joked.

“He’s five months old,” Bruce admonished him quietly, but grinned anyway.

“And? Some people play their children Mozart before they are even born.”

“You had Jarvis play Mozart and Beethoven and all the other classics for Darcy during both her pregnancies,” Bruce pointed out.

“And look how smart Ella Jane is already turning out to be.”

“Darcy had to threaten to re-program Jarvis to speak in a Cockney accent during her first pregnancy and to add a cuddling function to Dum-E during her second to make you back off.”

“I’m invested in their future, okay?”

Steve followed their bickering, amused. He had missed this, he realised. Missed the affection, the makeshift family thing. They’d all loved each other so much. When had this gone awry?

“And Steve is going to be late for his meeting,” Bruce said finally.

“Oh, yeah, post mission briefing with Hill. So much fun,” Tony said sarcastically.

“Yeah, but I should go anyway,” Steve made himself say. “And back to your original question: You’ll see both of my children in a few days anyway.”

“Right! Your birthday bash. Don’t worry, it’s no bash, we know how much you hate being the center of attention.”

When Steve walked into the meeting room, he almost backed out again, because he was so surprised to find Clint sitting there, relaxed, with his feet on the table.

He hadn’t worked with Clint in years. Clint had lost his hearing during an accident on a mission to find Bucky soon after the Triskelion had gone down. Clint hadn’t taken it well, especially since his sense of balance had been affected as well and had severely impacted his archery skills. Clint had never tried to adjust and had refused all offers of help. He had left their group soon after and moved away, stating that he didn’t want anything to do with them anymore and Steve had let him go. Rumour had it that he’d bought a farm in the middle of nowhere and was now herding cows. He got in touch with Natasha every now and then.

“Hey,” Steve said softly, but Clint didn’t react. That’s when he noticed the hearing aids in his ear. Immediately his dream memories came back to him: Clint had had the same accident, but with the help of their group, especially Darcy, had dealt with it much better. He was still an Avenger, one of the best archers in the world and still a total human knapsack at times. He was living in a run-down apartment complex he had mysteriously acquired from a bunch of unsavoury people and had taken somebody under his wing – a pun he repeated over and over.

Steve approached Clint and tapped him on the shoulder to make his presence known. Clint wheeled around and then fiddled with his hearing aids to turn them on.

“Hey Steve,” he said, “just appreciating the stillness.”

“I know you do.” Steve both signed it and said it out loud.

“I hate these post mission briefings,” Clint continued. “I mean, everything went great yesterday, didn’t it? You, Sam, me: dream team. We have to change your code name to something bird-related, then we can be the bird brothers. Maybe we should all learn an instrument, too, and make it into our band name.”

Steve chuckled. He had missed Clint’s weird sense of humour.

“And everything went according to plan. Another Hydra facility burned to the ground. Though less fun because this one wasn’t occupied. I would’ve loved to kick some ass,” Clint sounded pensive. “Hydra should get their shit together, it’s not even a challenge anymore.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Sam said from the door.

“You totally jinxed it,” Maria added, who stood next to him.

“Better prepare for Fury’s wrath,” Sam said.

The mention of Nick Fury made Steve briefly close his eyes, because of what had happened to him in reality. Nick Fury had said goodbye on that cemetery and he had stayed in touch, sending intel, burning down Hydra cells in Eastern Europe. But Steve had never seen him alive again. 14 months later he and Sam had followed an anonymous tip into an old factory outside of Ho Chi Minh City and had found Nick Fury with a bullet in his head. They had never caught the killer.

Steve then looked up and stared at Sam. Sam looked the same as ever, but at the same time not. Maybe because their estrangement hadn’t been so deep so far. But then Steve had alienated Sam over the last few months. Sam, who had wanted nothing but be a superhero. Sam, who was now stuck in this political mudslinging with him, but had remained at his side no matter what. So far at least. But even Sam had grown tired of him, Steve had felt it. Tired and stretched too thin. He had put Sam under too much pressure after his teammates had left Steve one by one.

Sam was with Maria both here in the dream and back in reality, the only difference being that they were in the middle of adopting their first child here. They couldn’t do that for real, not with all the stuff that was going on around them, with the clusterfuck that Steve had generated. He knew they wanted a child but had decided against it while the situation was as perilous as it was at the moment.

There was no danger here, in this alternative. Everybody was safe and sound. Safe and happy. Like it was supposed to be.

The meeting was short and to the point, because the mission in El Salvador had gone without a hitch. Afterwards Maria put all three on the backburner for the time being, to give them some rest. That was the advantage of having a larger roster of superheroes: there was seldom a moment when they all needed to assemble and they all had enough downtime to catch their breath.

Back in the day Steve couldn’t remember a day when he had taken time for himself. There had only been work for him, for a long time. But then, Steve had also wanted it that way. It had kept his mind off things, had kept him from thinking too hard, had kept him from mulling over certain questions.

Steve couldn’t even remember the last time he had had a full night of sleep. It was a good thing that the serum kept him going no matter what.

After the meeting Steve wasn’t even sure where he wanted to go, he just followed Clint and Sam, feeling numb.

“Steven!” he could hear a loud voice bellow behind him. Steve wheeled around to come face to face with Thor. Thor who had gone off Midgard with Jane years ago. Who had never returned afterwards and all the portals to Asgard had been closed at some point. Their connection had been severed. Ragnarök, that’s what Dr Selvig had theorized. They had never seen Thor and Jane again.

Four months later Dr Selvig had succumbed to a heart attack. Steve had never made it to the funeral. He’d taken a mission that day, knowing full well that Darcy would be in attendance. Unfortunately, his treacherous mind provided for him, Dr Selvig had died of natural causes in this universe, too.

“It is good to have you back,” Thor said earnestly. Steve instinctively knew that Thor always told him that after a successful mission, no matter how minor it might have been. That Thor made sure that Steve knew that he was needed back home. That Thor had kept him from falling into a funk a few times over, especially after finding Bucky. That Thor – with his centuries of knowledge and experience – was the wisest and kindest of them all.

“I will see you for our sparring lesson later?” Thor asked.

Steve just nodded mutely and Thor squeezed his shoulder quickly before walking away.

Steve went back into the empty meeting room and sat down heavily in one of the chairs. He let his head fall into his hands and took a few deep breaths. What was this? If this was a dream, he wanted to wake up now, before it would become even more hurtful. But then at the same time he didn’t. This alternative was wonderful, how it should have been.

He wondered when he had strayed from the path that could’ve led to this. The moment when he had started behaving in a way that their whole team had eventually gone to shreds. Where had been the fork in his path? What had been the linchpin moment? What had been the glue that kept them all together in this? Through everything?

This was torture. But it was torture of the sweetest kind.

Steve got back up, determined to get back to the rest of the day, through the rest of this alternative reality, until he would finally wake up.

Because that’s what Steve did. He always stood back up.

He got through the rest of the day like he was under a spell of some kind. He followed the motions expected of him, but at the same time he knew that he was just a visitor. This wasn’t made to last. The moment he would fall asleep at night, he would return to his normal life. That’s how dreams worked out, didn’t they? Even if this one was weirder than normal.

When he went to bed that night, after having kissed his children good night, snuggling into Darcy, he wished that this was real.

~*~

He didn’t wake up in his own bed the next morning, he again woke up in bed with Darcy, spooning her. Their legs were tangled together and he was holding her hand. It was silent. Apparently Jack-Jack wasn’t awake yet. His supersoldier hearing caught both Jack-Jack and Ella sleeping peacefully in their room.

The alarm clock told him that he was 4:30 in the morning.

Suddenly Steve had trouble breathing. It was as if the world was weighing down on his chest. The last time he had felt remotely this way was when he had still had asthma, before he had received the serum. This was worse.

He struggled with the blankets and then fell out of bed and onto the floor. Darcy moved in bed, he had woken her up, then.

He couldn’t do this any longer.

“I’m going for a run,” he announced.

Darcy looked at him sleepily. “What? Why would you do that? You haven’t done that in ages.”

“I need to clear my head?”

“You are behaving weird, Steve.”

“I just… I need to do this.”

“Fine,” was all Darcy said before she went back to sleep.

He got into his training gear and ran for miles at top speed, hoping that at some point he would finally be out of breath. An hour later and ca. 50 miles north of New York City his lungs finally started burning.

He stopped and looked into the sunrise.

Was this his punishment? he thought, wiping the sweat from his brows. Had he died and gone to his own personal hell, where he was forced to live through all the things that might have been? He definitely hadn’t died and gone to heaven. What he experienced was far too painful for that.

At this point he was certain that it wasn’t a dream any more, this was some sort of strange magic. The question was just why this had happened. He wasn’t supposed to have both memories, double memories of what had happened in the last four years.

Was somebody playing with him? Torturing him? Or was somebody trying to teach him a lesson? Or had he simply landed in an alternative universe with no way out? Was this a mission of some kind? Was he supposed to do something to get him out of this? Did he really want out of this?

He had no answers. He caught his breath and turned around and looked back south. Until he had all this figured out, he would have to play along, he assumed.

He made his way back to Brooklyn slowly. He made a detour through Hell’s Kitchen, too, to the place Darcy had moved to after their break-up. She’d moved out of the tower and into her own apartment in Hell’s Kitchen quickly after they had ended things. Then she had taken the promotion Pepper had offered her and become Pepper’s personal assistant, a position Darcy held to this day. Steve had checked it regularly. He knew the stories that the two women had become both admired and feared in the business world.

There was a magazine, hidden in his room, with an in-depth article about Pepper and Darcy, the new business power couple. Darcy was still Darcy Lewis and didn’t wear a ring on the high definition pictures. Not that it had mattered.

The building she had moved to had been torn down and in its place there was a new building with luxury condos now. Everything had moved on, it had been four years.

When he arrived back at their home it was empty. A message from Darcy informed him that he wasn’t expected at work today and if he wanted, he could pick up the children from day care and spend the day with them until she came home from work.

Steve trotted back up and took a shower. He stood under the spray of water for ages, trying to gather his thoughts. Or maybe this wasn’t punishment, maybe this was another chance. This was basically everything he had dreamed of. He was with the woman he loved, he had all his friends by his side, safe and sound. His job fulfilled him. The world was secure. Maybe he should take this chance and not try to leave this parallel universe. Enjoy this and not question it.

When he went back down to the living room, Nat was sitting cross-legged on the couch.

“James sent me,” she announced, “to talk to you. He said you were behaving weird. Well, weirder than normal. Darcy is a little freaked-out, too, but she’s dealing with it better than your best friend. Maybe because you behaved this way once already, in the month you two almost broke up. And she was in a bit of a funk a few months ago, too.”

Natasha had always been his support when it came to relationships. It was weird, really. Natasha loathed physical intimacy and didn’t have relationships with people that went further than friendship. She still played her cards close to her chest. But she had been the number one Steve/Darcy shipper, as she’d called it. She had tried to pair them all up. Steve knew that Natasha had also been instrumental in getting Sam and Maria together both here and back in reality.

So Natasha had been the most furious when their love had strayed and then been lost. Or maybe not lost, just buried under all the anger and all the obligations Steve had felt, towards Bucky, towards Peggy, towards the world.

He knew the moment where Nat had ‘incidentally’ remarked that Darcy had a date, that it wasn’t an accident. It was to tell him that Darcy was ready to move on and that it was for Steve to decide what he wanted to do now.

Two weeks later Steve had moved into the Avengers facility in upstate New York.

Natasha had never quite forgiven him that he hadn’t fought for Darcy.

Steve sat down on the couch heavily. “I’ve just been thinking…” he said.

“About your own mortality now that you are turning 100?”

“No, about the choices we make.”

“Why that?”

Steve shrugged and tried to appear casual. “Just because.”

“Are you not happy?” Natasha asked. “Do you regret some of your choices?”

“This,” Steve made an all-encompassing gesture with his hands, “is probably the happiest I will ever be. There is nothing I want more. But what if I had made some choices in the past that would’ve made all of this impossible?”

“Like breaking up with Darcy for real four years ago?”

Steve looked at her quizzically. “Why are you saying that?”

“Because that’s the first thing I could think of that would make you unhappy, would make everything impossible.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because Darcy is as important to us as you are. She is basically the glue that keeps us all together.”

Steve looked at her questioningly and Natasha rolled her eyes at him. “I know you kind of take her for granted, because she’s your goddamn wife and the love you have for each other is off the charts, but imagine what would’ve happened if you had broken up with her four years ago.” Natasha counted it down on her fingers. “Clint wouldn’t be what he is today, she was instrumental in his healing. Finding James and bringing him in wouldn’t have happened. Or it might, but it wouldn’t have been this smoothly. Remember: She was the political mastermind that made Tony forgive James. I mean: The Winter Soldier did kill Tony’s father and Tony did nurture some very petty revenge fantasies at some point.”

“Yeah, he did,” Steve agreed. Revenge fantasies that had almost killed Bucky.

“I’m pretty sure the scientists wouldn’t work with each other any more,” Natasha continued, “because she kept them all in line. She took care of Bruce, made him feel welcome and human. She made Jane behave and kept Thor happy. I’m sure without Darcy in the labs the first few years, Thor would’ve taken Jane and disappeared to Asgard. Without Darcy’s friendship **I** probably wouldn’t be here. Do you know how nice it is to have a fellow female friend who’s just there? Accepts you without ulterior motives?”

There it was. Natasha had just spelled it out: The fork in his path. The linchpin moment. The moment he had lost Darcy, had let her go, he had lost every chance to all of this.

“And imagine how heartbroken you would be without Darcy,” Natasha finished.

I don’t have to, Steve thought.

They were quiet for a while.

“Any other choices you want to discuss?” Natasha then said. “I mean, I can go back... Back to the day where you decided to take down the helicarriers and destroy SHIELD. Imagine if you hadn’t done that. Back to the day where your plunged that plane into the ice. Back to the day where you met Dr Erskine.”

“I think I’m good.”

“Then act like it, goddammit,” Natasha got up. “I don’t know what made you question your choices, but you have nothing to regret here, Steve. Nothing.”

But he had so much to regret in his other life. Maybe it was time to let go.

~*~

It was easy, to fall into his new life. He grew accustomed to his friends quickly. He fell in love with Darcy all over again. Not that he had ever fallen out of love, he realised, but having her around, having a family with her, was the best thing that had happened to him. He fell back into their old familiarity, the familiarity they had had four years ago, with ease. He loved it.

He loved her. So much that it hurt. He was so lucky to have her and their children around. The fourth day after he had woken up in this reality he caught himself asking if he wanted a third child. He would never let go. Maybe this was meant to be, this was the alternative reality he was meant to live. This was a gift, he realised. He was meant to enjoy this. Maybe it would stay like this forever, then he could prove to Darcy every single day that he was worthy of her love.

He enjoyed his 100th birthday immensely. As Tony had promised, it wasn’t an extravagant birthday bash. Instead he spent it with all his friends at the tower, barbecuing, like they had always done on Independence Day.

Afterwards they went back to their family home in Brooklyn and Steve put Ella into bed. When he went back down into the living room, he found Darcy lying on the couch. Jack-Jack was asleep on her stomach. Steve felt so much love at that exact moment, the thought his heart might burst.

He crouched down next to the two of them and kissed Darcy on the lips. She was breath-taking.

“What was that for?” she asked, amused.

“Just because.” Steve shrugged. “You all right?” he then asked.

“Yeah, just sleepy. Are you okay?”

“Sure, why not?”

“You’ve been acting weird this week, when you came back from that mission in El Salvador.”

“Sorry, I was preoccupied.”

“No harm done. Just don’t do it again. Talk to me next time, Steve.”

“I will,” he promised.

They put Jack-Jack into bed as well and then went back outside into their backyard to look at the fireworks. Darcy leaned into him, her head rested on his shoulders.

He softly kissed her hair while they waited for the fireworks to start. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too, Steve.”

Warmth surrounded him. Again he heard a faint buzzing sound and then suddenly the fireworks became brighter and brighter. Steve shielded his eyes but the white light began surrounding him.

Then he once more floated into nothingness.

* * *

Steve awoke with a start, blinded for a moment by the bright light. He noticed that he was holding somebody’s hand and looked to his left to see Darcy Lewis lying next to him on the cold concrete floor, unmoving. He checked her pulse and her breathing and was relieved that she was just unconscious, not dead.

He looked around and realised that he was in a lab of some kind. They both were lying in the middle of some weird circle that was surrounded by words in in foreign letters. Steve had a faint recollection that they could be Asgardian. They looked like some of the inscriptions Thor had worn on some of his dress uniforms.

Steve shook his head, trying to get rid of the images in his head. He would think about what had happened later. For now he just had to get them both out of here.

The silence in the lab was eerie and deafening. Steve looked around further to find any scientists that might have experimented on them, but instead he saw almost a dozen unmoving bodies in lab coats.

Steve got up from his position on the floor to check if they posed any threats. He idly wondered how long he had been out. Physically he felt unharmed, like he had just woken up from a very long sleep. He was still wearing his uniform.

He checked up on every single scientist. All of them were dead, staring blankly into nothing. He couldn’t find any obvious physical explanation for their death, so he just left them as they were so that the scientific portion of his team could investigate.

He looked at the door and then back at Darcy. He couldn’t leave her behind, she was unconscious and vulnerable. But at the same time escaping with her in his arms was infinitely more dangerous, especially since his shield had apparently been taken from him.

He weighed the pros and cons for a moment and tried to formulate a strategy but then that decision was taken from him, when his supersoldier hearing caught the faint screech of repulsor engines. Now he really wondered how long he had been out that they had felt the need to get Iron Man involved. But maybe then they had gotten him involved the moment they’d realised that Darcy was missing, too. Tony loved Darcy, had all but adopted her back in the day. Steve assumed that they were still close so naturally his former team member had come back to save her.

Steve took a step away from the door and not two minutes later it was blasted open and Iron Man appeared. Before Steve could say anything, Clint appeared next to him, bow at the ready. Steve openly stared at both of them, but then it made sense: Darcy had been closest to the two of them. Of course they would both come to her rescue.

Tony lifted the faceplate of his suit. “Captain?” he just asked.

“I’m okay, Darcy is out like a light. Unconscious but physically unharmed, as far as I can tell. The rest is dead. Not by my doing,” he added.

“Did everybody copy that?” Tony said into his helmet, probably to update their status to the rest of the team.

“We should get you both into medical,” Tony then suggested.

“Agreed.” Steve nodded his head shortly and he saw a look of surprise flash across Tony’s face, probably because Steve had agreed to a medical examination so quickly and without resistance. It was a well-known fact that Steve hated doctors and any prolonged stay in medical facilities. But then they didn’t know what had just happened here.

Steve still felt confused and unhinged. Whatever he had just experienced had left a permanent impression. He wondered what the scientists had done to Darcy, had done to him. Strangely all of this, being rescued, being the Captain again, having to fight with Tony, felt like a dream now. Maybe if he pinched himself now he would wake up and be back with Darcy, back at their family home in Brooklyn, go to sleep together, like they had done a 1,000 times before. If he just believed, he might wake up. At the same time he knew that he wouldn’t. That this was reality. He took a deep breath, willing himself to keep it together until he could mull over this alone.

Tony had apparently caught his reaction and frowned at Steve for a moment, but didn’t say anything. Instead he went to pick Darcy up gingerly and carefully carried her to the quinjet. Steve followed Clint outside, silent. He passed by Nat and Sam, who were rounding up the survivors. They would be processed and questioned by the secondary team led by Maria, that would probably arrive any second now. The investigative crew would arrive shortly after.

The facility where they’d kept him and Darcy had been underground and when Steve made his way back to the surface he looked around but didn’t recognise anything.

“Where are we?” He’d become rusty in sign language after Clint had disappeared but he still managed to find the words.

“El Salvador,” Clint answered out loud and gestured at his hearing aids.

“How long was I gone?”

“Three days.”

Steve stared at him for a moment. “And Darcy?”

“Her too.”

Steve was still mulling over this when Sam and Nat joined them.

“Any idea how we ended up in El Salvador?” Steve asked the two. “My last recollection was crashing into that hidden Hydra facility in Indonesia…”

“You just disappeared on us from one second to another. There was light and then there wasn’t and then…” Sam hesitated with his explanation. “There were scorch marks…” Sam trailed off.

“Like the marks Thor would leave on the ground whenever he went over the Bifröst,” Natasha finished.

Steve stared at the two of them and was about to ask further questions, when Tony’s voice carried over to them from the quinjet. “Hey team, I’d hate to break up the reunion, but I’d really love to get Darcy back stateside and into medical. Jarvis said that her vital signs all look normal, but she’s still out. She needs to be checked over. Her and spangles both.”

The flight back to the upstate New York facility was short and uneventful. Darcy remained unconscious the whole time. Sometimes she would twitch, but other than that she looked peaceful, like in a deep sleep. Steve stared at her, wondering, and then had to force himself to look away. He wasn’t allowed to do this, he reminded himself. In this life, they had broken up years ago and not seen each other since.

When they landed, they both were ushered into the med bay, Steve walking himself, Darcy on a stretcher. They were put into adjourning rooms. Since everything was made out of glass, he could still observe Darcy while he was treated himself. That was, until one of the medical team would inevitably activate the privacy shield. He couldn’t make out what was being said next door, though, because everything was soundproof, even to supersoldier hearing.

Darcy woke up with a start minutes after they’d arrived. He could see her mouth forming one word and he thought that it was “Steve” but he couldn’t be sure, maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him. Again.

She briefly struggled against sphygmomanometer on her arm and the IV drip attached to her hand, until one of the nurses rushed over to her side to calm her down. Darcy looked around in the med bay, disoriented, until her gaze fell on Steve, who was watching her closely through the glass window. She stared straight at him, her right hand rubbing her left ring finger subconsciously. “Steve,” she said again, softly, this time Steve was sure he read her lips correctly.

Steve couldn’t do this any longer. He forced himself to look away and then asked for the privacy shield to be activated. He didn’t know what happened to Darcy afterwards.

All their vitals came back clean and they were both released the next morning. There psychological state was something else entirely. Darcy was as confused as he was, with the added mystery that she had no idea how she had ended up in the Hydra facility. She had no recollection at all. All she knew was that one night, the same night Steve had gone on his mission to Indonesia, she’d gone to sleep in her bed and next she knew she had woken up in El Salvador three days later. There was no sign of foul play at her apartment, Clint reported, or anywhere else in her vicinity. No scorch marks like when Steve had disappeared. For all intents and purposes it looked as if Darcy had disappeared into thin air only to appear next to Steve.

Physically she was unharmed, but nobody could tell what ordeal she had endured.

Steve idly wondered if she’d dreamed of something, too. That this was why she had woken up with his name on her lips.

Like him Darcy had steadfastly refused to see a therapist on site and by her express wish Tony and Pepper, who had arrived too, were to take her back to New York immediately.

Steve stood on the landing bay and watched them leave. Darcy hadn’t spoken to him at all and had walked past him to take her place in the quinjet. Steve and Tony parted ways with a terse nod. Again, this was the end of their short collaboration. It had taken Darcy for the two to talk again. But with her rescued they no longer had any common ground. She really had been the glue that kept them together.

Pepper was politer and they exchanged a few words before she got on the quinjet as well. Steve took one last look at the quinjet and at Darcy and caught her staring at him, wistfully. When his gaze met hers, she paled and then quickly looked away.

He watched the plane leave, feeling as if his heart would break in two.

The next day Steve returned to the Hydra facility to investigate what had happened to him.

It turned out to be disappointing: They researched everything but found nothing that would explain his experience other than that the Hydra group had played with Alien science that had quickly gone over their heads. Nobody involved in that experiment – other than Steve and Darcy – had remained alive. The hired muscle, which they had taken prisoner and were allowed to interrogate before they were extradited to the local authorities, couldn’t tell them anything. All the notes on the experiment were indecipherable, at least for the scientists they had at their disposal.

Nobody said it out loud but they needed Jane in this, preferable Thor, too, but neither was available. Not any more.

Steve’s team saved all the intel they could find, both on servers and on file, for some future event where they might find somebody able to figure out what had happened. Steve personally made sure that only a limited number of people had access to the data. Afterwards he personally scorched the facility to the ground.

~*~

Alone again, that’s how he felt, alone again.

And heartbroken. He was more heartbroken than anything. Could you be heartbroken from a thing you had never really had? Steve asked himself. Or maybe it wasn’t heartbreak, maybe it was yearning for the life he could’ve had. Or it was mourning all that he had lost. Mourning something that had never been his to begin with.

But then he felt that his heart had split in two, so maybe heartbreak it was. It was just fair for him to experience it now. He hadn’t been heartbroken when he and Darcy had first broken up. Back then he had mostly been irritable and angry and then had channelled all his focus into finding Bucky. Then, when finding Bucky hadn’t worked out how it was supposed to be either, there had been bitter disappointment. He had never internalised his feelings, he had led them out on everybody else, but now Steve realised: It was all his fault.

So heartbreak it was.

This was worse than waking up 70 years in the future. Yes, he had lost everything then, too, but he had also known that Peggy, Dum Dum, Morita, Falsworth, Gabe, Dernier and Howard had all lived their lives, happily so. That he had impacted their lives in a positive way and they had created something positive in return. But this time he knew that the people surrounding him were all mostly miserable and they could’ve had a better life had Steve not behaved like a prime idiot.

He had failed them all.

But he refused to fall into depression. Maybe this was hell, having had a life with Darcy that would never be. Knowing that they could have been happy together. But then maybe this was also a lesson and served to make him see the error of his ways. Maybe that had been the purpose of this dream: To show him that he could be a better man.

With that in mind when he made his decision. He might never be able to be with Darcy, but he could become a better person nevertheless.

Maybe he could save all the people around him, change their lives for the better even if it was too late to save himself.

He reached out to Tony first. It was time to stop their petty feud.

~*~

Attending the New Year’s party at Stark tower had been a mistake. New Year’s… there was the faint buzz of excitement in the air. A new year was about to start, with all its new possibilities. Who knew what the future would bring?

Steve just felt bone deep exhaustion.

He had worked tirelessly to turn things around for the better part of the past four months and it was starting to bear fruit.

Tony and him had finally found a compromise.

Steve had reconnected with Clint, had even visited him on his farm. It was peaceful where he lived now. Clint had named his cows after his old teammates and then joked that “Cap” was always breaking through the fences or looking for a fight.

He had taken up archery once more. So far Steve had been unable to persuade him out of his retirement.

He had finally gotten back into his banter with Natasha and she no longer looked at him like he was one big disappointment.

He had let Sam go. Sam had quickly taken him up on his offer to take a break from avenging and was now once more a retired pararescueman, trying to figure out what he wanted from the world. Maria still ran the Avengers with an iron first, but was noticeably happier. Steve wondered when they would start their family planning here.

They had yet to find Bruce or Thor.

Tony had never given up on finding Bruce, Steve had found out. But who had known that the rumpled scientist with that big person inside him would be so good at dodging the authorities? Still, Tony’s algorithms kept searching and Steve kept his eyes and ears open in the intelligence community.

Thor was another matter entirely since he wasn’t earthbound. During every thunderstorm Steve stood by the windows, admiring his friend’s workmanship, hoping for a dramatic return like the first time he’d met him, when Thor had landed on that quinjet on its way back from Stuttgart all those years ago. But so far Thor had not returned.

They had searched the world for another scientist that could follow up Jane Foster’s and Erik Selvig’s work on the convergence, but they came up empty handed. Dr Jane Foster had been inspiring to many scientists but she had been the one revolutionary believer in the Einstein-Rosen bridge and nobody could replicate that. They missed her acutely.

And sadly they couldn’t bring back the dead.

And then Steve had performed one of the hardest tasks in his life: He had let Bucky go. He had stopped actively searching for him and the last time Bucky had called him to tell him to back off and stop searching for him, Steve had not tried to persuade him to come back in, had not told him about all the advances he’d made, had not pointed out that Tony was no longer out for Bucky’s blood. Instead he had said: “I know. I’m letting you go, James Buchanan Barnes, and live your life. If you don’t want to, you will never hear from me again. I am no longer forcing myself into your life. You are free.”

All he heard was Bucky’s breathing at the other end of the line before he had disconnected the call. Steve hadn’t heard a word since.

So things should be looking upwards for Steve. He had followed his purpose, he had done well, had done good as best as he could. But that hadn’t helped to fill the emptiness inside. Still he felt aimless and he definitely wasn’t happy. And now that he had fulfilled his purpose, now that he had no longer a distraction in his work, it was the perfect time for the bottled-up feelings he had for Darcy, for their little family, to return. All the memories that weren’t really his.

So Steve wasn’t really looking forward towards the new year and all its promises. For him there was just loneliness.

He decided to leave the party early. He would get on his bike and drive out of town. Clear his head. Find a way to deal with all the yearning. Memories that were his but at the same time weren’t. He took one last look at the all the excited people and then slipped out of the room.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had decided to leave the party early. Darcy was standing by the elevators, too, jacket in her hand.

It had been four months since he’d last seen her on the quinjet. He had been consciously avoiding her. He’d asked himself if he should maybe avoid her forever, that maybe it would help him, but at the same time he knew that it wouldn’t. Just staying away from her had been already been difficult, enormously so. He would wake up at night and have trouble breathing. He missed Darcy’s body next to his, snuggling into her warmth and feeling safe and sound. He missed the faint buzz of Jack-Jack waking up. Hearing Ella snoring three doors down thanks to his supersoldier hearing and knowing that she had no worry in the world. His left hand felt naked without his wedding band.

It had only been one week. One perfect week he couldn’t let go of. One perfect week and a lifetime of memories that weren’t real.

By now he’d had uncountable sleepless night where he’d hoped that exercise would lead to exhaustion and sleep (it hadn’t). He had run through two pairs of shoes every week. He probably knew every route between New York and Canada.

He had tried and mostly succeeded in mending fences with all his friends and comrades. He had yet to approach Darcy. It hurt too much. And at the same time it was the one thing he really wanted. Being with her.

But he wouldn’t survive a second disappointment when Darcy would undoubtedly shoot him down, reject him for good reason. So he had held his tongue.

He wondered if Darcy had dreamed too and if yes, what she had been dreaming about. It would just be fair if her feelings had developed into the opposite direction. Maybe she hated him now. Hated him even more after all that he had done to her already when he left her years ago. Now he was also the reason she had woken up as a captive in a Hydra facility after they had apparently experimented on both of them.

He stopped to stand next to her and forcefully pushed the button for the elevator to appear.

“You heading out?” he asked Darcy, desperately trying to appear casual. He itched to put his hand on the small of her back, a small sign of affection, of possessiveness. He wasn’t allowed to do that anymore, he reminded himself. He hadn’t been allowed to do that for a long time. He balled his hands into fists.

But nevertheless he missed her touch. The casual touches were the worst, the light kisses on cheeks and lips, the small touches on his arms, his hands resting on her hips for just a second or two, squeezing her hand and lacing her fingers with his. They had just gotten re-acquainted, he had gotten re-acquainted to everything that was just… _her_ and then everything was taken from him once more.

This was the worst. Knowing how everything could have been but not being able to do anything. He was so used to their alternative life, still. Just standing next to her he felt like an addict on cold turkey. He had avoided her for a good reason.

“Yeah, I’m not really in a partying mood today,” Darcy answered, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Me too.”

They stood next to each other in silence. Steve awkwardly shifted on the balls of his feet. Maybe this was one of the last conversations he would ever have with Darcy. There was no reason they would be in each other’s presence again. At least not soon. Their lives were separate, had been separate for years now. They hadn’t seen each other since their break-up, until they’d both woken up in that Hydra facility, so he might not see her again for years, too. He better made the few moments he had with her count the. Commit them to memory, even if it was just meaningless small talk. Even if she might hate him.

“You doing okay, though?” Steve asked a few moments later. “After the Hydra shock and everything?”

“It’s basically the same old, same old, in our world, isn’t it?” Darcy said, smiling slightly, but the smile never reached her eyes.

“Not for you,” Steve stated, but Darcy didn’t take up on that. “How are you getting back home?” Steve desperately tried to keep their conversation going. “New York streets will be packed at this hour. The masses are trying to find Times Square to see the ball drop.”

“I’ll fiddle my way through with public transport.”

“Where do you live these days? Still in that run-down place in Hell’s Kitchen?”

Darcy stared at him, maybe because she hadn’t actually expected him to remember that. “No, I moved to Brooklyn years ago,” she then said quietly.

“Oh.”

“How’s upstate New York treating you?”

Steve shrugged. “It’s okay… lonely at times.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Darcy said wistfully. “That’s why I bought a cat.”

“No boyfriend then?”

“Too busy.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Again they were silent and stared at the elevator doors that had yet to open. Steve thought hard about other topics they could converse about, but he came up empty. So he just stared at her in silence and didn’t care that his adoration was probably prominently displayed in his face. He was trying to commit her face to memory.

“I heard,” Darcy stated hesitatingly, “I heard that you got back down here and that you’ve been mending fences left and right. Or trying to. That’s why Tony invited you.”

“I had a change of heart,” Steve confessed, “after El Salvador. So whatever I can salvage… I will try until my dying breath.”

“It’s a start – if it’s still salvageable.”

“I know some things can never be saved, some estrangements… are… incurable. But I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try.”

Darcy’s head wheeled around to stare at him and then the elevator finally arrived. They both stared at it for a moment when the doors dinged and opened, confused, but then went for the door.

Steve’s fingers brushed against Darcy’s only briefly, accidentally, but the effect was immediate: Flashes of the life they could’ve had played in front of his eyes. Flashes of things he had never had, would never experience now: Jack-Jack’s first steps, Ella driving her bicycle on their street in full speed with Steve running after her, Ella’s first day of school, Jack-Jack’s project for the science fair, the crayon paintings they’d put up on the fridge, Darcy being pregnant again.

Steve stopped short and stood ramrod straight, waiting for the moment to pass. His heart was beating so hard he felt as if it wanted to escape his chest. Then he dared to look down at Darcy. She was white as a sheet and breathing heavily, so something must have affected her as well. She made a caught-off motion with her hands, rubbing the spot where they had touched. She then stepped into the waiting elevator and Steve followed her. They didn’t say anything, the doors closed and they began their descent.

“I miss them,” Steve said softly into the silence of the elevator and didn’t care that he might sound like a complete lunatic. He could hear Darcy’s sharp intake of breath. “Ella and Jack-Jack. I miss them. I’m sad that I’d never see them grow up. And I miss everybody else, too. Bucky. And Jane and Thor. And Tony and Pepper. Dorky Natasha. Clint. Tea with Bruce. Sam and Maria. Even Nick Fury’s wisdom. But most importantly: I miss you. I miss you most of all.”

“I miss them, too,” Darcy agreed quietly.

Steve pushed the button for the elevator’s emergency stop and it came to a screeching halt between floors.

“So you experienced the same thing?” Steve asked to make sure. “I would never have guessed that it was an experience for you as well, that we shared this. I thought I was in there alone, being shown my own failings, like Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Darcy took a step backwards and stood on the opposite side of the carriage, leaning against the wall, and refused to meet his eyes.

“I thought it was just me. That I had conjured this perfect version of us, of you. You were dorky and sweet and full of love and our children… they were beautiful.”

“Yeah, they were.”

“And I loved playing along with all of it, playing pretend. All the time.”

“I did, too. It took some time getting used to, but…” Steve trailed off.

“And then it was all taken from me.”

“How long were you in there?” Steve wanted to know. “Because you played along perfectly.”

“Five months,” Darcy answered, “I arrived on Jack-Jack’s birthday, the moment the doctor placed him in my arms. I still know how it felt like, the endorphins coursing through me… The perfect moment, you should’ve seen the adoration in your eyes, the unconditional love. And at the same time you looked reverent, like you couldn’t believe that this was real.”

“I know,” Steve said quietly. “I have all these memories that don’t belong to me. Of Ella’s birth, too. Our wedding. The moment Bucky came back to me, for real. I still have them. All of them. It’s bittersweet and painful but I’d hate to lose them.”

“I do, too. I wish Jane was here,” Darcy whispered, swallowing hard. “She would know how this whole cosmic time warp thing works. She would understand. And if not, she would find out. How long were you there?” Darcy looked up at him questioningly.

“Barely a week. The week before my 100th birthday. I woke up when the fireworks started.”

“Then we woke up together,” Darcy stated quietly. “That week was our last week together. So what happened that made us both wake up at the same time?” Darcy asked, finally looking up at him. “Why did all of this happen?”

“I’ve been mulling over this in my head endless times,” Steve confessed. “That’s the question that keeps me awake at night. Do you think that was the reality we were meant to live? To show us that what one choice could’ve changed?”

“What choice would that have been? What choice would have had us have married three years ago?”

Steve took a deep breath and decided to go for it. “There was a ring,” he said in a rush, staring squarely into Darcy’s eyes. “The one you wore in our… dream, alternative universe, whatever. That’s the ring I bought for you, before… before everything went to shit. Years ago. I had made plans for the next time you were to come to DC. I wanted to ask you but then I never did. I still have the ring. It’s in storage because I don’t have many personal effects in the upstate facility. I never sold it and I would never give it to somebody else.”

Darcy looked up at him and tears began pooling in her eyes. Steve immediately felt guilty. He hadn’t meant to pressure her, but he just needed to tell her.

“There,” Darcy began haltingly, “there was a baby, I… I miscarried in the 10th week, before I could tell you.” Darcy took a shuddering breath. “You were away looking for Bucky and I wanted to tell you once you returned. I’d bought tiny socks and a Captain America onesie to give to you for the announcement, but it never came to be. Nat is the only one who knows. She found me in a puddle of my own blood and brought me to the emergency room. She was sworn to secrecy until I could tell you. But then you returned from your search and then Peggy died. And by then you were just gone… physically present but no longer with me. And then I thought it was a sign… so I never told you. I didn’t fight to get you back. I’m sorry that I never told you.” Tears began streaming down her face. “I gave all the baby stuff I’d bought and never used to goodwill before I moved to Brooklyn.”

Steve took two quick steps towards Darcy, closing the distance between them, and pulled her into his arms. This time nothing happened when he touched her. She was crying openly now and he could feel her tears dampen his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she hiccupped through her tears.

“It’s not your fault,” Steve objected immediately. “You have nothing to apologize for. I drove you away.”

“And I let you go.”

“I became obsessed with finding Bucky and burning Hydra to the ground once and for all and salvaging Peggy’s legacy. I forgot you along the way.”

“I wasn’t there to help you. I didn’t want to understand you. I didn’t understand what it all meant to you.”

“I put up the walls first and I didn’t let you back in.”

“I never tried scaling them. I gave up on you too quickly. I told myself that that was how it was meant to be. It would’ve never worked out in the end anyway.”

“Well, then we can both agree that we both didn’t fight when we should’ve?” Steve suggested.

Darcy smiled up at him through her tears. “I forgot how good you were at this. The charismatic, diplomatic team leader.”

“You should see me now.” Steve searched his pockets for his handkerchief and then handed it to Darcy. “There’s barely anything of him left. I’m more feared than adored these days.”

“They just don’t know the real you.”

“Because I never showed them.”

Darcy didn’t answer and wiped her eyes with his handkerchief.

“What are we, Steve?” she then asked. “What was it all?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said helplessly.

“How do we go back? I want to go back.” Darcy sounded desperate now.

“We can’t. We can’t go back in time. We cannot go back to the alternate reality. All we can do is move forward.”

Darcy’s tears began falling again. “I cannot pretend that nothing happened.”

“No, neither can I. But we cannot get stuck on the could have been, on the might have been, on the should have been. I tried that once already.”

“Steve-” Darcy began but Steve silenced her with a shake of his head immediately.

“No, it’s all good, Darcy. I don’t want your pity on this.”

“So what do we do now?”

Steve considered her for a moment. “We are not going to ignore everything behind us,” he then decided. “It makes us what we are. So I am going to ask you out, hoping that you will say yes and then we are going to start anew.”

Darcy stared at him for a long time. “Okay,” she then just said. “We can do that. We will do that. I will say yes.”

Then Darcy tilted her head and looked at him. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. It was short and sweet, like they were used to it. She rested her foreheads against his.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry I had to kill Peggy to further Steve’s manpain…
> 
> Also: Thor and Jane are totally not dead, there was a hiccup with the convergence and Steve and Darcy’s weird cosmic time warp thing totally opened the portal back up! There was a reference to that in the story, too (thunder and lightning and everything frightening and such), but that took away the focus from Steve and Darcy in the end. But I wanted you to know that Thor and Jane make it back, too. (As if Jane wouldn’t work establishing contact from the other side again, Ragnarök be damned.)
> 
> And Bucky: Bucky will return to Steve’s side at some point. Steve had to set him free first to heal. And Steve had to heal himself.


End file.
